I have a love/hate thing for real time strategy games. I love the
economics, the fast paced gameplay, and watching my little army men go
rampaging. But they require stressful micromanagement,
so I never play one for long. My favourite of all time is Rise of Nations.

Supreme
Commander is the new big RTS release. It's the successor to Total
Annihilation, the 1997 RTS that still has a rabid fan following
for its simplicity and modability. I didn't play too much TA, but it
looks like SupCom is the same game in every way, just new.

What sets SupCom apart from other RTS games is the economic model.
There are a few resources on the map but mostly you build your economy
up via buildings and units you can place anywhere. Your economy is all
about flow; not "I've accumulated six zillion dollars and I'm going to
build a giant army now" but rather "I'm making a hundred dollars a
minute and can build 4 giant robots a minute". I don't know the
economic model is really that different from other RTS, but it plays better.

The best part of SupCom is the beautifully animated units of multiple
scales. It's great fun to watch your spiderbots, mobile artillery, and
giant mechasuit guys slug it out. But you tend to spend most of
your time zoomed all the way out where the units are reduced to 3x3
icons. But zooming in, there's some fun stuff happening.

It's a good game and I'm already getting a bit tired of it, as with
all RTS I play. Part of the problem is that the game is very demanding
on computer resources and has a horribly buggy sound system that
breaks half the time. That part's not so fun. But the giant robots are
awesome. If you want to read more about the game, try this excellent fan blog.